Canary Islands rescue more than 300 migrants from two boats

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The Spanish coastguard rescued more than 300 migrants from two boats off the Canary Islands.
A boat carrying 96 people arrived in Lanzarote, where three migrants were taken to hospital.
A cayuco carrying more than 200 people was escorted to the port of Mogán on Gran Canaria.

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The Maritime Rescue Service has rescued two more vessels on the Canary Islands Route, carrying more than 300 people according to preliminary estimates: one was taken to Lanzarote with 96 people on board, and the other was in waters near Gran Canaria with more than 200.

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The first of the boats to be rescued was intercepted shortly after 9.30 pm on Saturday, local time, in international waters, some 50 nautical miles (around 92 kilometres) north-east of Lanzarote, towards which the state-owned Guardamar Urania had set sail; it rescued the occupants and left the boat adrift at the scene.

The Guardamar arrived at the Arrecife quay at around 1.00 am on Sunday, according to information provided by the Lanzarote Emergency Consortium.

Lanzarote: Emergency team treats 96 migrants following their crossing

There, the emergency response team provided assistance to 96 people, nine of whom were women, one of whom was a minor, and a further eight who claimed to be minors, none of whom were accompanied.

Three of the migrants had to be taken to hospital due to various medical conditions following their journey.

According to the migrants‘ accounts upon their arrival in the capital of Lanzarote, the boat was carrying people from Burkina Faso, the Comoros, the Ivory Coast, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Conakry, Liberia, Mali, Morocco, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Senegal.

Sea rescue service escorts a cayuco carrying over 200 people to Mogan

Meanwhile, since early this Sunday morning, another rescue operation has been underway involving a cayuco in waters off Gran Canaria, which was located some two nautical miles, just over 3.5 kilometres, south of Arguineguín, according to information provided to EFE by the Maritime Rescue Service.

One of the state-owned company’s vessels travelled to the scene and escorted the makeshift boat to the quay in Mogán, where its occupants, provisionally estimated by Red Cross sources to number more than 200 people, began disembarking just a few minutes ago.